Technology

While Instagram and Facebook face increased scrutiny on how they manage their teenage audience, Snap is taking steps to ensure a safer experience for its youngest users by working on a set of family safety tools. In an interview this week on WSJ Tech Live (via TechCrunch), CEO Evan Spiegel spoke of his vision for allowing parents to hold their teens’ hands while the kids are navigating Snapchat. “One of the goals with the product is to open up a dialogue between parents and their children about their experiences on the app,” said Spiegel, hoping to align with parents in a time where similar platforms are negatively affecting young teens. During this interview, Spiegel also mentioned that there is an in-house parental control system in the works called the “Family Center.” While the company...

The ongoing global chip shortage is going to be a problem for a lot longer, according to Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger, who reiterated today ahead of the company’s Q3 earnings that he expects the shortage to extend until at least 2023. “We’re in the worst of it now; every quarter next year, we’ll get incrementally better, but they’re not going to have supply-demand balance until 2023,” Gelsinger told CNBC in an interview. Intel rival AMD seemed to have more optimistic expectations, with AMD CEO Dr. Lisa Su commenting at the 2021 Code Conference that while supply would be “likely tight” for the near future, “it’ll get better in 2022” as production capacity continues to ramp. “It gets better next year, not immediately, but it’ll gradually get better as more plants come up.” Nvidia, on the other ha...

Microsoft is releasing a new Windows 11 update today that fixes some of the AMD CPU performance issues. AMD and Microsoft found two issues with Windows 11 on Ryzen processors at launch, with one causing L3 cache latency to triple and slowing performance by up to 15 percent in certain games. Microsoft is now fixing this particular issue with Windows 11 Build 22000.282, available to all Windows 11 users today as an optional update in Windows Update. While the last Windows 11 update made these issues worse, today’s patch should fix them for good on the L3 cache latency side. The second outstanding issue affects AMD’s preferred core technology, which shifts threads over to the fastest core on a processor. AMD says this second bug could impact performance on CPU-reliant tasks, and AMD has alrea...

The long-lost Apple VideoPad 2 prototype is going up for auction in November as part of a History of Science and Technology auction by Bonhams, an international auction house, in Los Angeles. The VideoPad will be auctioned alongside other Apple prototypes and Steve Jobs memorabilia and is estimated to sell between $8,000 and $12,000. Developed between 1993 and 1995 with VideoPad 1 and 3 (the only two examples shown to the public), this only surviving PDA prototype was Apple’s next attempt after the Newton Message Pad. Unlike the Newton Message Pad, the fold-up screen apparently included a built-in camera for video conferencing. Despite being designed to be ahead of its time, it was canceled along with Newton OS after Jobs’ return to the company in 1997. According to Bonhams, that was after...

Google gave a glimpse into how the new smart home standard Matter might actually work in our smart homes today, and it’s looking pretty exciting. At its Google Smart Home Developer Summit, the company announced new tools to help developers build devices that work with both Google Home, the new connectivity standard Matter, and across any other Matter-complaint ecosystems. This means that, yes — one day, very soon — the (new) Nest Thermostat could work in the Apple Home app without the need for Home Assistant or other workarounds. And if those two can work together, well, anyone can. Due to arrive next year, Matter is an open smart home application protocol that promises to make smart home devices talk to each other no matter who made them. It wants to take the hard work out of choosing, se...

In his latest attempt to return to the social media spotlight, Donald Trump is now turning to a current darling of the startup world: the special purpose acquisition company, or SPAC. Trump announced Wednesday night that he has a new company called Trump Media & Technology Group (TMTG) and that he would be merging this new company with a SPAC called Digital World Acquisition Company (DWAC). If completed, the deal would turn Trump’s new media company into one that’s publicly traded on the Nasdaq. And it would give TMTG enough money to get a new Twitter clone off the ground called “Truth.” The surprise deal is already turning DWAC into a meme stock, and it raises a fair number of questions. Wait, what’s a SPAC? Briefly, SPACs are shell companies that get listed on exchanges like the Nasd...

Workers at Amazon’s warehouses in Staten Island, New York are preparing to file for a union election with the National Labor Relations Board on October 25th, after getting signatures on union authorization cards from more than 2,000 workers. The Amazon Labor Union (ALU) is an independent group of employees that has been trying to organize workers at four Amazon warehouses in Staten Island. It’s led by former Amazon worker Christian Smalls, who was fired in March after he helped organize a walkout at the company’s JFK8 warehouse to protest unsafe working conditions during the pandemic. Amazon has said Smalls was fired for violating safety regulations. “This is truly a remarkable historical moment for all Amazon workers all over the country,” the ALU said in a statement Thursday. “We’re not ...

The Pokémon Company released a new teaser trailer for Pokémon Legends: Arceus, and it’s causing a bit of concern. The 2-minute video features found footage of an unknown professor’s trek through a snowy wilderness as he attempts to document pokémon using a strange device he’s found. The professor — who will probably become the fandom’s newest zaddy because he sounds really cute — can’t contain his excitement as he stumbles on a sneeze of snorunts. But because of this man’s gleeful disregard for his own safety approaching dangerous (but oh so cute) animals in their natural habitats, it’s easy to see what happens next. The professor makes his way deep into a forest where he spots what he thinks is a zorua and zoroark. Suddenly, he’s struck by a shadow and goes silent, with the camera falling...

Samsung recently revealed the Galaxy Z Flip 3 Bespoke Edition at the Samsung Galaxy Unpacked 2021 Part 2 event on October 20. The new offering boasts special UX features and 49 possible color variations. “Today’s customers are multi-faceted, and live life in many colorful, and different ways. We believe the technology they use should reflect their unique lifestyle,” said Stephanie Choi, SVP & Head of Marketing of the Mobile Communications Business at Samsung Electronics. “At Samsung, we’re constantly developing new technologies to match customers’ needs, preferences, and lives. Now, we’re excited to introduce the Galaxy Z Flip3 Bespoke Edition — opening new experiences to customers that reflect who they are, with the technology they use the most.” To identify color options, Samsung res...

TV Asahi‘s All-Nippon News Network has just reported some interesting occurrences taking place on the historically significant island Iō Tō (Iwo Jima). The island’s name translates to “Sulpher Island” and gets its name from the sulfurous gas that the island vents out — many have reported that the island smells of rotten eggs. With the eruption of the underwater volcano Fukutoku-Okanoba back in August, a small island was formed. A day later, Nishinoshima volcano, located some 800 miles south of Tokyo, erupted. Curious as to what other changes may have occurred in the area, ANN News sent out a plane to investigate and were surprised when they witnessed dozen of ships from WWII scattered near the coast of Iwo To (west Iwo Jima). While Kadena Air Base does say that these “ghost” ships were act...

Facebook Messenger is adding “group effects” that allow everyone on a video call to participate in the same augmented reality experience at the same time. The effects are available now across Messenger video calls as well as Messenger Rooms, the service’s Zoom-like videoconferencing feature, and are coming soon to Instagram, the company says. There are over 70 group effects available at launch, including a game where players compete to build a virtual burger, and another where a virtual orange cat photobombs the call. It’s a shift from the service’s existing augmented reality features, which tend to only apply to one participant at a time. Facebook says developers will be able to build more group effects using its Spark AR API from the end of the month. Alongside the shared group AR experi...